Fly Feet Stick By Capillary Action

Fly feet stick by capillary action according to Nature, vol 431, p756, 14 Oct 2004. Mattia Langer and colleagues have studied fly feet and footprints to discover how flies maintain an upside down grip on the ceiling or any other surface. Flies' feet have numerous bristles that end in flat spatula-shaped plates that are kept wet by fluid secreted from the feet. This enables the flat plates to adhere to the surface using capillary action - the effect that enables a wet piece of paper or plastic to stick to a surface.

Editorial Comment: This is a nice example of irreducible complexity - a system that won't work until all components are working together. For a fly to walk upside down on a sloped or horizontal surface, (e.g. the underside of a tree branch or overhanging rock), it needs to have the spatula plates, the fluid secretions and a brain which knew it could walk upside down without falling off before it first tried to do it and found it was committing suicide. Otherwise, half evolved flies would be falling off the undersides of horizontal surfaces, or unknowingly carrying around spatula plates and glands but only walking on surfaces that don't need them. It makes far more sense to believe the Creator Christ made the fly with all these components together, so it could fertilise upside down flowers and other good things. (Ref. design, forward-planning, insects)